'It has to be done': can Reconstruction-era laws hold Trump and allies accountable?
In attempts to hold former president Donald Trump and his allies accountable for election subversion, attorneys are reaching back to laws created in the wake of the civil war in the 1860s.
Beyond Trump, too, lawsuits using these Reconstruction-era laws seek to enforce voting rights and prevent discrimination in modern-era elections.
The laws from this time period were designed, in part, to reintegrate the Confederate states back into the country and ensure that they did not yet again attempt to overthrow the government or pass laws to restrict newly freed Black citizens.
But the Reconstruction Congress created laws that were flexible and responsive to modern-day threats, making them applicable today and worth trying to enforce, said Jessica Marsden, an attorney with Protect Democracy, which has filed lawsuits using such laws.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/done-reconstruction-era-laws-hold-131518906.html